Before
1983

The concept of open source and the free sharing of technological
information existed long before computers and software existed. In
the early years of automobile development, the Association
of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM), a group of capital
monopolists, owned the
rights to a 2 cycle gasoline engine patent
originally filed by George B. Selden.[1]
By controlling this patent, they were able to monopolize the
industry and attempted to force car manufacturers to build vehicles
according to their specifications (heavy, expensive luxury cars
designed for the rich). Any manufacturer they granted a license to
had to pay them a licensing fee, as well as a percentage of gross
earnings.[1]
At the 1905 Chicago Auto Show, a group of
independent automakers, including Ford Motor Company, REO
Motor Car Company, and Maxwell-Briscoe,
formed a new organization, the American Motor Car Manufacturers
Association (AMCMA) to collectively fight the Selden patent and
ALAM monopoly. After some setbacks including losing an initial
lawsuit and the dissolution of AMCMA in 1909, Henry Ford appealed the decision and in 1911
he won. The decision was that that the Selden patent, which was for
2 cycle motors, did not cover the engines most automakers were
using at the time (which were 4 cycle motors based on the design
of Nicolaus
Otto). The result was that the Selden patent became virtually
worthless and the ALAM dissolved, with a new association (which
would eventually become the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers
Association).[1]
The new association instituted a cross-licensing agreement among
all US auto manufacturers: although each company would develop
technology and file patents, these patents were shared openly and
without the exchange of money between all the manufacturers.[1]
Up to the point where the US entered World War II, 92 Ford patents
were being used freely by other manufacturers and were in turn
making use of 515 patents from other companies, all without
lawsuits or the exchange of any money.[1]

In the 1950s and into the 1960s almost all software was produced
largely by academics and corporate researchers working in
collaboration and was not itself seen as a commodity. Operating
systems were widely distributed and maintained by the community of
users. Source code,
the human-readable version of software, was distributed with
software because users frequently modified the software themselves
to fix bugs or add new functionality.[4] An IBM mainframe operating system, Airline Control Program
(ACP), from 1967 reportedly distributed its source code in a way
very similar to free software.[5]

User groups such as that of the IBM 701, called SHARE, and that of Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC), called DECUS were formed to facilitate the exchange of
software. Thus in this era, software was free in a sense, not
because of any concerted effort by software users or developers,
but rather because software was developed by the user community. By
the late 1960s change was coming: as operating systems and programming languagecompilers evolved,
manufacturer's software costs were dramatically increasing. A
nascent, albeit growing software industry was competing with the
hardware manufacturer's bundled software products (the cost of
bundled products was included in the hardware cost), leased
machines required software support while providing no revenue for
software, and some customers able to better meet their own
needs[6] did not
want the costs of manufacturer's software to be bundled with
hardware product costs. In the United State vs. IBM antitrust suit, filed January 17, 1969,
the U.S. government charged that bundled software was
anticompetitive.[7] While
some software continued to come at no cost, there was a growing
amount of software that was for sale only.

In the 1970s AT&T distributed early versions of UNIX at no
cost to government and academic researchers, but these versions did
not come with permission to redistribute or to distribute modified
versions, and were thus not free software in the modern meaning of
the phrase.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, computer vendors and
software-only companies began routinely charging for software licences,
marketing it as "Program Products" and imposing legal restrictions
on new software developments, now seen as assets, through copyrights, trademarks, and leasing
contracts. In 1976 Bill
Gates signaled the change of the times when he wrote his
now-famous Open Letter to Hobbyists,
sending out the message that what hackers called "sharing" was, in
his words, "stealing". In 1979, AT&T, for example, began to
enforce its restrictive licences when the company decided it might
profit by selling the Unix system.[8]

The advent of Usenet in the
early 1980s further connected the programming community and
provided a simpler way for programmers to share their software and
contribute to software others had written.[9]

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What
remains

Some free software which was developed in the 70s and early 80s
which continues to be used includes SPICE,[10], TeX (developed by Donald Knuth), and
the X Window
System. The W Window System provided a start for
the X Window System, but differed in several fundamental ways.
Development of the X Window System was concurrent with the GNU
project, but GNU was in no way responsible for the X Window
System.

GNU
and FSF's early years

In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project to write a
complete operating system free from constraints on use of its
source code. Particular incidents that motivated this include a
case where an annoying printer couldn't be fixed because the source
code was withheld from users.[11]
Another probable inspiration for the GNU project and its manifesto was a disagreement between
Stallman and Symbolics,
Inc. over MIT's access to updates Symbolics had made to its
Lisp machine, which was based on MIT code.[12] Soon
after the launch, he coined the term "free software" and founded the Free Software Foundation to
promote the concept and a free software definition
was published in February 1986.

The GNU project's kernel, later called "GNU Hurd", was continually delayed, but most
other components were completed by 1991. Some of these, especially
the GNU Compiler Collection, had
become market leaders in their own right. The GNU Debugger and GNU
Emacs were also notable successes.

Linux
(1991-)

The Linux
kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely
modifiable source code in 1991. The licence wasn't exactly a free
software license, but with version 0.12 in February 1992, he
relicensed the project under the GNU General Public
License.[15] Much
like Unix, Torvalds' kernel attracted the attention of volunteer
programmers.

Until this point, the GNU project's lack of a kernel meant that
no complete free software operating systems existed. The
development of Torvalds' kernel closed that last gap. The
combination of the almost-finished GNU operating
system and the Linux kernel made the first complete free
software operating system.

GNU/Linux remains free software under the terms of the GNU GPL,
but many businesses offer customized Linux-based products, or
distributions, with commercial support. The naming remains controversial between the
open source and the
free software community, with
groups arguing for either "Linux"(the open source and general name)
or "GNU/Linux"(free software's name) for the whole operating
system.

The DotCom years (late
1990s)

In the mid to late 90s, when many website-based companies were
starting up, free software became a popular choice for web servers.
Apache
HTTP Server became the most used web server software - a title
that still holds as of 2008. Systems based on a common "stack" of
software with the Linux kernel at the base, Apache providing web
services, the MySQL database
engine for data storage, and the PHP
programming language binding it all together, came to be known as
LAMP(called GLAMP by the free software community, see GNU/Linux naming
controversy) systems.

Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to
bring free software principles and benefits to the commercial
software industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was
not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to
rebrand the free software movement to emphasize the business
potential of the sharing of source code. The new name they chose
was "open source," and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds,
and others signed on to the rebranding. The Open
Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage use
of the new term and evangelize open source principles.[17]

However, Richard Stallman and the FSF harshly objected to the
new organization's approach. They felt that, with its narrow focus
on source code, OSI was burying the philosophical and social values
of free software and hiding the issue of computer users' freedom.
Stallman still maintained, however, that users of each term were
allies in the fight against proprietary software.[18]

Ettrich chose to use the Qt toolkit for the KDE project. At the
time, Qt did not use a free software licence. Members of
the GNU project became concerned with the use of such a toolkit for
building a free software desktop environment. In August 1997, two
projects were started in response to KDE: the Harmony toolkit (a free replacement for the
Qt libraries) and GNOME (a different desktop without Qt and built
entirely on top of free software).[20]GTK+ was chosen as the base of
GNOME in place of the Qt toolkit.

Recent
developments

In May 8, 2007, Sun Microsystems released the Java
Development Kit as OpenJDK
under the GNU General Public License. Part of the class library (4%
of it) could not be released as open source due to them being
licensed from other parties and were included as binary plugs.
Because of this, in June 2007, Red Hat launched IcedTea to resolve the encumbered components
with the equivalents from GNU Classpath implementation. Since the
release, most of the encumbrances have been solved, leaving only
the audio engine code and colour management system (the latter is
to be resolved using LittleCMS).

In the 1950s and into the 1960s almost all software was produced largely by academics and corporate researchers working in collaboration and was not itself seen as a commodity. Operating systems were widely distributed and maintained by the community of users. Source code, the human-readable version of software, was distributed with software because users frequently modified the software themselves to fix bugs or add new functionality.[3] User groups such as that of the IBM 701, called SHARE, and that of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), called DECUS were formed to facilitate the exchange of software. Thus in this era, software was free in a sense, not because of any concerted effort by software users or developers, but rather because software was developed by the user community. By the late 1960s change was coming: as operating systems and programming languagecompilers evolved, manufacturer's software costs were dramatically increasing. A nascent, albeit growing software industry was competing with the hardware manufacturer's bundled software products (the cost of bundled products was included in the hardware cost), leased machines required software support while providing no revenue for software, and some customers able to better meet their own needs[4] did not want the costs of manufacturer's software to be bundled with hardware product costs. In the United State vs. IBM antitrust suit, filed January 17, 1969, the U.S. government charged that bundled software was anticompetitive.[5] While some software continued to come at no cost, there was a growing amount of software that was for sale only.

In the 1970s AT&T distributed early versions of UNIX at no cost to government and academic researchers, but these versions did not come with permission to redistribute or to distribute modified versions, and were thus not free software in the modern meaning of the phrase.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, computer vendors and software-only companies began routinely charging for software licences, marketing it as "Program Products" and imposing legal restrictions on new software developments, now seen as assets, through copyrights, trademarks, and leasing contracts. In 1976 Bill Gates signaled the change of the times when he wrote his now-famous Open Letter to Hobbyists, sending out the message that what hackers called "sharing" was, in his words, "stealing". In 1979, AT&T, for example, began to enforce its restrictive licences when the company decided it might profit by selling the Unix system.[6]

The advent of Usenet in the early 1980s further connected the programming community and provided a simpler way for programmers to share their software and contribute to software others had written.[7]

What remains

Some free software which was developed in the 70s and early 80s which continues to be used includes SPICE,[8], TeX (developed by Donald Knuth), and the X Window System. The W Window System provided a start for the X Window System: but differed in several fundamental ways. Development of the X Window System was concurrent with the GNU project: but GNU was in no way responsible for the X Window System.

GNU and FSF's early years

Main article: GNU project

In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project to write a complete operating system free from constraints on use of its source code. Particular incidents that motivated this include a case where an annoying printer couldn't be fixed because the source code was withheld from them.[9] Another probable inspiration for the GNU project and its manifesto was a disagreement between Stallman and Symbolics, Inc. over MIT's access to updates Symbolics had made to its Lisp machine, which was based on MIT code.[10]
Soon after the launch, he coined the term "free software" and founded the Free Software Foundation to promote the concept and a free software definition was published in February 1986.

The GNU project's kernel, later called "GNU Hurd", was continually delayed, but most other components were completed by 1991. Some of these, especially the GNU Compiler Collection, had become market leaders in their own right. The GNU Debugger and GNU Emacs were also notable successes.

Linux (1991-)

The Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991. The licence wasn't exactly a free software licence, but with version 0.12 in February 1992, he relicensed the project under the GNU General Public License.[13] Much like Unix, Torvalds' kernel attracted the attention of volunteer programmers.

Until this point, the GNU project's lack of a kernel meant that no complete free software operating systems existed. The development of Torvalds' kernel closed that last gap. The combination of the almost-finished GNU operating system and the Linux kernel made the first complete free software operating system.

Among GNU/Linux distributions, Debian GNU/Linux, begun by Ian Murdock in 1993, is noteworthy for being explicitly committed to the GNU and FSF principles of free software. The Debian developers' principles are expressed in the Debian Social Contract. Since its inception, the Debian project has been closely linked with the FSF, and in fact was sponsored by the FSF for a year in 1994-5. In 1997, former Debian project leader Bruce Perens also helped found Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit funding and support organization for various free software projects.[14]

GNU/Linux remains free software under the terms of the GNU GPL, but many businesses offer customized Linux-based products, or distributions, with commercial support. The naming remains controversial inside the free software community, with groups arguing for either "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" for the whole operating system.

The GNU+Linux distributions

From 1993 onwards, operating systems based on GNU, Linux, and other software began to appear. Peter MacDonald 'sSoftlanding Linux System was the first organised distribution, and Debian GNU/Linux was probably the first popular distribution.

The DotCom years (late 1990s)

In the mid to late 90s, when many website-based companies were starting up, free software became a popular choice for web servers. Apache HTTP Server became the most used web server software - a title that still holds as of 2008. Systems based on a common "stack" of software with the Linux kernel at the base, Apache providing web services, the MySQL database engine for data storage, and the PHP programming language binding it all together, came to be known as LAMP systems.

Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring free software principles and benefits to the commercial software industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the free software movement to emphasize the business potential of the sharing of source code. The new name they chose was "open source," and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others signed on to the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage use of the new term and evangelize open source principles.[15]

However, Richard Stallman and the FSF harshly objected to the new organization's approach. They felt that, with its narrow focus on source code, OSI was burying the philosophical and social values of free software and hiding the issue of computer users' freedom. Stallman still maintained, however, that users of each term were allies in the fight against proprietary software.[16]

Ettrich chose to use the Qt toolkit for the KDE project. At the time, Qt did not use a free software licence. Members of the GNU project became concerned with the use of such a toolkit for building a free software desktop environment. In August 1997, two projects were started in response to KDE: the Harmony toolkit (a free replacement for the Qt libraries) and GNOME (a different desktop without Qt and built entirely on top of free software).[18]GTK+ was chosen as the base of GNOME in place of the Qt toolkit.

In May 8, 2007, Sun Microsystems released the Java Development Kit as OpenJDK under the GNU General Public License. Part of the class library (4% of it) could not be released as open source due to them being licensed from other parties and were included as binary plugs.Template:Fact Because of this, in June 2007, RedHat launched IcedTea to resolve the encumbered components with the equivalents from GNU Classpath implementation. Since the release, most of the encumbrances have been solved, leaving only the audio engine code and colour management system (the latter is to be resolved using LittleCMS).